Tuesday, 24 May 2011

Finally, we have some good news. Jack Wilshere has not been called up for the England under-21s for this summer's European Championships in Denmark. Personally I'm glad that Jack has finally seen sense. There was no use him going on this trip if he was going to play himself into the ground and be out of action through injury for large parts of next season.

Ultimately his bigger goal is to do well for Arsenal and be selected for next summer's senior Euro 2012 tournament. There would be no benefit to either Wilshere himself, England or Arsenal for him to go on tour with Stuart Pearce's team this summer if he misses out next summer. I have no problem that he wants to play for England at any age group. However I think he has to realise he's got a long career ahead of him and if he wants to achieve all his goal he needs to be sensible about what he puts his body through, especially at the early stage of his career.

Congratulations must go to Kieran Gibbs and Henri Lansbury who were selected to go to Denmark.

"I said I wanted to go but I was a bit concerned with my fitness. When they showed me the stats, it didn’t really sink in at first, but it just kept going down, on a downward spiral.

"It scared me a bit, made me realise [that] as much as I’m 19 and can keep going and keep going, there’s going to be a time when you’re going to hit the wall.

"Maybe that was coming. Over the last four games, after about 60 minutes, you feel a bit more tired than you did in January."

Although he is missing out for the under-21 he's still been picked to play in an European Championship qualifier against Switzerland on June 4, along with Theo Walcott.

It means that although the domestic season is over Wilshere, Walcott and all the other Arsenal players called up for international duty are still going into London Colney to train. They can only begin their holidays next week, before returning for pre-season in seven weeks.

And during that pre-season window Arsenal will be heading to Asia to play games in both Malaysia and China after the club officially announced details of their tour to the Far East.

The game in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, July 13, will kick off 8.45pm local time [1.45pm BST] whilst the game in China against Hangzhou GreenTown on Saturday, July 16, will kick off 7.30pm local time [12.30pm BST].

All very exciting.

Arsene Wenger has spoken to French TV station Téléfoot. The stand out qquote for me was:

"For the first time in a while, I will be very active in the transfer market."

Which is obviously good news, if the right players are recruited.

Nicklas Bendtner's father and agent Thomas has been speaking to the media. He said:

"Nicklas is 100 per cent open now to a change of clubs. He has made his decision and he has told it to Arsenal.

"Nicklas needs to be playing regularly from the start, so, sadly, he must leave.

"He wanted to finish the season first, so no-one could say he didn't fight for a first-team place right until the end.

"There is real interest from both English and German clubs, and Bayern Munich were after him, earlier. It's very exciting.

"But talk about Aston Villa is rubbish. He has not met anyone from there."

It really doesn't come as a surprise that he wants to move on to find regular first team football. But it will leave us with a huge hole in the squad. If as expected Carlos Vela also moves on, Arsenal will be left very light up front.

Personally I think he'll be a huge loss for Arsenal. Perhaps he's not achieved what many fans would have hoped so far in his career with the club but I think that because he's been around for so many years - and lets remember he is just 23-years-old. Unfortunately the system doesn't suit him but playing a 4-4-2, he'd be able to start more games at present.

Anyway, as always these situations all come down to money. If Arsenal receive an acceptable bid, he'll be allowed to leave. I'm sure if Andy Carroll is worth £35m, we should be looking for at least £20m for Bendtner.

There are a few transfer rumours doing the rounds. The Daily Mirror link Andrey Arshavin with a £7m move back to Zenit St Petersburg.

The Sun say the club are fighting it out with Manchester City for Real Madrid's 20-year-old midfielder Sergio Canales. The fee mentioned is £7m.

According to L'Equipe, Samir Nasri is being targeted by Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson.

Whilst silly season has well and truly started with Aston Villa's Stewart Downing is being linked with a move to Arsenal by the Daily Mail.